Fannie Flagg is an author that I both enjoy and admire. She has succeeded as an actress, a comedienne, a screenwriter, and an author. The tenacity and vitality she has shown in her careers and her personal life sends us the message that women are strong and capable people. She also uses her humor and storytelling ability to create characters that further that image and encourage women to be independent. She sends the message that if you want to accomplish something you must keep trying to over

Fried Green Tomatoes has many high points and humorous musings, but my favorite part is Evelyn's epiphany that having balls is the most important thing in this world. When Ed comes home from the office and refers to a co-worker as "a real ball breaker," Evelyn starts thinking of all the phases men use about their balls and the importance they attach to them (275). There are "She's out to get my balls," "I had to hold on to my balls for dear life," and when the same woman in the office had stood up to the boss, she was "a ballsy dame" (276). Evelyn wonders why it's "Boy, she's got some balls" and not "Boy, she's got some ovaries". She remembers that when the their son had an testicle that did not descend, Ed insisted on sending him to a psychiatrist and wonders why no one ever sent her for help when her breasts didn't develop. When she realizes that it's not so much the size of the balls that are important, just the fact that you have some balls that matters, Evelyn thinks that "Maybe she could get two from an anonymous donor. That's it, she'd buy some balls off a dead man and she could put them in a box and take them to important meetings and bang them on the table to get her way" (277). I sure would like to have my own box of balls!

About the Author. Random House. 15 April 2001.

In Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!, Flagg tells the story of another strong woman, Dena Nordstrom, who has a mystery in her past. Flagg uses more autobiographical themes with Dena being a successful television anchorwoman in New York City for part of the book. This time, the small town in the book is in the Midwest instead of the South, but the messages are the same - to stand up for what you think is right and enjoy yourself along the way. When old Aunt Elner tells Dena that you never know what will happen from one minute to the next, she adds, "All the more reason to enjoy every one of them" (218). In Robert Plunket's review of Welcome to the World, he says of Fannie Flagg, "Even when she prattles - and she prattles a great deal during this book - you are always aware that a star is at work. She has that gift that certain people from the theater have, of never boring the audience." I think one could say the same of all her books.

All of Flagg's books feature women as the central characters. These women are either strong or in the process of becoming strong. Coming Attractions begins with the journal entries of an eleven-year-old and ends when she becomes the self-confident and free-spirited winner of the Miss Mississippi Contest. The young Daisy Fay writes, "I can do anything a boy can do. I can even beat up Michael. It must be terrible to be born a girl and know that your daddy really wanted a little boy" (76). When she is older, Daisy Fay attends a Catholic boarding school where she resents the fact that women are not allowed on the altar except to clean. After watching her favorite nun "nearly genuflect herself to death at the altar," Daisy Fay says, "The next day I went in and walked all over that altar and didn't genuflect once. Who says that priests are better than nuns?" (191).

Little, Pam. "Fried Green Tomatoes and a Smorgasbord of Other Things We Like to Read and

15 April 2001 .

Although she always wanted to write, Flagg found that acting came more easily to her. When she was 14 she joined a theater group in Birmingham where friends in the group called her "Baby Girl" because she was the youngest. She competed in the Miss Alabama pageant where she acted out some comedy sketches she had written and modeled a dress she had designed made entirely out of old menus. While not winning the pageant, she won a scholarship to the Pittsburgh Playhouse, an acting school, where she went for one year. She left after being told that she should go home, get married, and forget acting because her southern accent was too bad (ReadersOnly.com). When joining Actors' Equity

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Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)